A Visit With Daniel Williams

Last Friday, December 18 to be exact, I left the office early to hook up with one of our US cymbal artists, Daniel Williams of the band The Devil Wears Prada. The band was playing a show that night at one of the few decent venues in Nashville for heavy music, Rocketown. Daniel and TDWP have been on a steady upward trajectory for quite some time now, and it's been a very cool thing to witness. So I was looking forward to some hang time with Daniel and to also see their show that night, as it was sold out.

Pre-show, I was fed some obligatory beers by Daniel and his ever-hospitable band-mates while hanging on their tour bus outside the venue. Daniel and the guys talked about how fortunate they feel to be doing such good business touring during what is an extremely trying time for bands on the road. People only have a limited amount of money to spend on concerts and bands' merchandise, so TDWP feel grateful that they are selling out venues and that people are choosing to spend their money on them.

Along with biz talk, we also rapped about life stuff in general. My job is called artist RELATIONS, and it is always nice when it is indeed a RELATION, when the artist is genuinely interested in an exchange of ideas and conversation. In Daniel's case, it's definitely a relation. He's a super-great guy who cares about everyone around him and it certainly shows.

So showtime came along and I was glad to get some good video footage of Daniel at work.

The Classics 22" Medium Ride that he just switched to is an interesting thing. So many artists these days are into a steady washing white noise sound. I've suggested this B8 alloy cymbal to a few artists and it's gone over very well. The alloy is durable and the sound is bright enough to cut through the dense wall of guitar and bass amplification. This cymbal is like a motor. Get it going with just enough wrist action and the cymbal will do the rest of the job for you. I suggested this cymbal to Daniel a month or so ago and he is super stoked to have it in his setup. If you have a hankering for a white noise wall of wash cymbal sound, check this one out.

Enjoy the footage of Daniel and Happy Holidays to all of you out there.

- Chris

Chris Brewer

Artist Relations Manager for Meinl USA

4 responses to "A Visit With Daniel Williams"

Conor B posted on Dec 23, 2009 - 0:29 AM

Daniel is my idol! The Devil Wears Prada are my favourite band, and the sheer energy he puts into every performance is just infectious, he\'s influenced my style a lot. I only recently discovered Meinl, and I\'m starting a long term overhaul of all my cymbals, starting with a Byzance Brilliant china, and an Mb10 crash. Wasn\'t too sure about big, band driving rides to crash on, but that Classics 22\" sounds great, I\'ll definitely be checking it out!

Chris Brewer posted on Dec 23, 2009 - 17:56 PM

@ Conor - Glad to hear that you are so into Daniel and that you are over-hauling your cymbals. We don\'t normally push the rides for crashing on, but in this instance, the Classics 22\" Medium Ride is so durable and provides such a great wall of sound that\'s not too hard to build up to, that I can\'t help but recommend it! Good luck with your overhaul, and happy holidays! - Chris

Mitch posted on Dec 28, 2009 - 6:12 AM

love meinl got 20\" byzance traditional china and 22\" byzance traditional heavy ride and daniel my favorite by far i mean very far my kit is the same but i never thought he would use a medium he always used heavy rides im deff checking out that ride it sound great and he has a 20 mb20 china does he not.

Mikael posted on Jan 04, 2010 - 18:00 PM

thanks for the videos Chris! don\'t hesitate to upload more! ;)
TDWP is an awesome band and Daniel\'s a terrific drummer! :)

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